a different kind of yesterday
by Kay-elf
Summary: (Originally my 'return to middle earth' - reformatted and updated.) Legolas returns to Middle Earth in the modern times.
1. prologue

Author's Note: This story is about the elf Legolas, who returns to Middle Earth during modern times to see what changes have occurred. It is set in about 1999, and the books exist but the films obviously don't yet, and so Lord of the Rings isn't as greatly well known as it is now. This story is about the changes Legolas goes through, and how he adjusts to the present time. Obviously he will meet OCs, but I am totally not going to do any Mary Sue stuff, I've got no interest in writing that. Legolas isn't going to 'get with' anyone, but he's going to make some friends because I doubt he could survive the modern age alone. Hope you enjoy it, and I hope that I finish it! Take care.

(Disclaimer - Legolas does not belong to me (sadly), and neither does anything to do with 'the Lord of the Rings'. The OC are mine, however. Modern day England isn't. )

**Prologue:**

Far back into the depths of time, there was once an age of darkness from which was born a ring. One great ring, encompassing the power to rule all,  
_One ring to rule them all  
One ring to find them  
One ring to bring them all  
And in the darkness bind them_  
The one Ring was made and held by the dark lord Sauron, until in a great battle for the freedom of Middle Earth against the forces of darkness, it came to another. Isildur, son of the King, took his father's sword when he fell and cut the Ring from the dark lord's hand. A troubled run of events led the Ring to the hands of the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins, and from there it came under the attention of the great wizard Mithrandir, known to most as Gandalf. It was he who revealed the terrible history of the Ring, which begun the most perilous quests of all time. The task of destroying the Ring was given to the nephew of Bilbo, a young Frodo Baggins, who appointed himself to carry the Ring into the heart of the black lands of Mordor, and cast it into the fires of Mount Doom. He set off from the House of Rivendell, and with him came eight others, eight companions. Amongst them was Samwise Gamgee, a loyal hobbit who dearly loved Frodo. There was also the great man Aragorn son of Arathorn, a great warrior and noble, who fought bravely and who was loved by many. He finally claimed his rightful place as King, and married Arwen Evenstar, fair elf-maiden, who sacrificed her immortality for him. The other members of the Fellowship were the two brave Hobbits, Meriadoc and Peregrin, the man Boromir of Gondor who perished whilst bravely fighting the Uruk-Hai, the dwarf Gimli, the fair elf Legolas, Prince of Mirkwood, and the great wizard Gandalf. With these companions, Frodo walked his dark path, and the trials he and the rest of the Fellowship faced on their journey can be read of in the great tales of _The Lord of the Rings_. This is a great literary masterpeice, compiled from the journals of both Bilbo and Frodo, and the great tales of the old folk from Middle Earth, now presented to this modern world as a fantasty.  
All who read these tales may be briefly touched by the glimpse of this powerful and alien world, some may treasure moments of Frodo's quest for the rest of their lives. None know the one most important fact about these tales - they are true.  
None of the Fellowship now survive, save one. Only one of them had the gift of immortality, the elf Legolas. In the year of 1521, following the death of the King Elessar, Legolas built a ship in Ithilien and sailed over the Sea, and with him went the other surviving member of the Fellowship, his dear friend Gimli. After many years within the West, Gimli passed on, and Legolas spent countless ages in mourning, finally recovering himself to continue a life that felt lonely after his time as a member of the Fellowship. For over a thousand more years, he carried out his existence, until at last the time came when he knew he must return to the land of Middle Earth, to see how it had changed, or how much remained the same.   
This tale tells of Legolas, last member of the great Fellowship, of his contact with the changes the world had gone through, and the changes he himself then experienced. 


	2. returning

****

**ch 1 : returning**

Legolas arrived back in Middle Earth on a calm day in mid-Spring, when the natural life had begun to reawaken after its winter sleep. He stepped back onto the shores of Middle Earth, the sun warming his back as he bent down to pull his boat up the shore and away from the water. He had only brought a few posessions with him which he carried in a bundle on his lower back, along with his quiver full of arrows and his bow, also stored away. A mixture of emotions were stirring in him as he stood there, primarily a sense of wonder and fear at the unknown. Galadriel had warned him that the world might have changed beyond his comprehension; beyond anything he could have imagined. But he could see nothing that indicated this to him, instead, his attention was caught by a single sparrow that flew rapidly across his line of vision. He bent down again suddenly and collected a handful of pebbles, looking at them for a minute, their texture and worn surfaces. Then he let them drop, and ran lightly up the grassy slope ahead of him.  
When he reached the top of the slope, he sat down in the long grass to gaze at the land stretched before him. It was a peaceful looking grassy flat, surrounded by hills and much as he had remembered it. The day was as clear and the landscape as green as when he had left it over two thousand years ago. The breeze reached him as he reclined there and lifted a few strands of his golden hair from his shoulder, while sending many mixed messages flowing into his senses. Narrowing his clear blue eyes against the glare of the sun, he sat for a moment more, a brief smile flitting across his mouth and a glad feeling rising in his heart. He was back in the lands he had grown up in and, for the moment at least, he felt safe. Although the breeze had brought to him a sense of change, he could see no sign of it. Idly plucking a blade of grass, he stood up again, shifted the pack and quiver on his pack and turned to the path which led down the slope to the fields below.  
He walked for a while across the green landscape, the only sound the swish of the grass against his soft boots, and the whispering of the breeze in his ears. Before him stretched the green carpet of the fields, flanked by the endless hills, looming shades of dusky purple in the distance that were capped with streaks of snow. The sky remained the same clear cloudless blue for the next few hours as he walked along at the feet of the mountains and the sun was still glaring down on him as he took a path up the side of the mountain, intending to get a longer view of the land beyond. He was beginning to feel nervous, puzzled by how the land seemed entirely the same, and yet his senses were still aware of the changes that must have occurred, and wondered what they could be.   
The path climbed up, and he followed it up the steep slope to where the grass met the sprawl of rocks, his steps silent and his sudden appearance startling a couple of rabbits dozing in the sun on the grass above their burrows. He watched them dart away into the nearest undergrowth, and smiled slightly. They were the first signs of life, other than the birds, that he had seen and he felt comforted by their timeless presence. He turned his gaze away from them, tightened the strap holding the quiver to his back, and lightly jumped onto the rocks on the crest of the hill. Below him the mountains tumbled in a mass of rocks and dense undergrowth, back to the stretch of fields, which then gave way to the land beyond. With his keen eyesight, Legolas picked out a stream cutting across the fields, and then he was hit with confusion. He could see buildings, but they were not like any other buildings he had seen previously. He could tell they must be farms, as they had fields around them marked with fencing, and contained livestock, but he could make no sense of the strange objects beside them. They reflected the sun, and brought to his senses a mixture of smells that he couldn't understand and had never come across before. He again felt the shiver of fear, but also intense curiosity, and remembering his reasons for returning to Middle-Earth, he was suddenly overcome with a feeling of reckless excitement. Surefooted, he jumped down the rocks, his feet finding a path down the dangerously steep slope, his mind suddenly filled with the image of a small figure, its expression both frightened but determined, fingers closing around the gold Ring inside its hand.   
He reached the bottom of the hill, and stood there slightly breathless, running his fingers lightly over his bow while glancing around him, remaining constantly alert. Absently pushing back long locks of golden hair behind his pointed ears, he headed towards the nearest farm, a feeling of nervous apprehension growing inside him. It was all still very quiet, although as he drew closer to the buildings he heard the sounds of the grazing animals in the fields. He stopped and stared at the fence ­ strands of wire tacked to wooden posts. He ran his fingers along this, and stepped back in surprise when it pricked his fingers. On the other side of the fence, the grazing cattle lifted their heads and stared at him with liquid brown eyes. They were also comforting to him, he breathed in their warm animal smell, then stared closer, at the metal tags in their ears. A sign of the change, although only slight.   
  
He stepped away from the fence and slowly walked around to the front of the farm, every nerve beginning to prickle. He wasn't afraid, but he was unsure of himself and these surroundings, and therefore couldn't feel entirely confident either. He suppressed a sudden instinctive urge to reach for an arrow and fit it to the bow which was held tightly in his grasp, but he stayed his hand and looked around again. He was now standing at the end of a wide track leading up to the farm building, and after a moment's hesitation he hurried along it towards the large barn and the house set to one side of it, the cows in the field beside him watching his progress. The track widened out into a yard, and one side of the barn was open, divided into two sections, one filled with a stacked mound of hay bales, and the other an open space where some strange looking vehicles were parked. Filled with curiousity, and a sense that this was another sign of the change, the elf approached these strange looking contraptions cautiously. They resembled carts of some kind, but were made of an entirely different material, and had an alien smell that clung to his senses in an unpleasant way. Yet the yard also had the warm smell of animals and hay and the contrast between that timeless smell, and the cloying scent of fuel, made him close his eyes for a second to attempt to collect his thoughts. He opened them abruptly when he heard the sound of a dog barking, and a voice calling out. Glancing towards the house, he saw the side door had opened and he was now being spoken to by a young man who looked at him with a faintly uneasy gaze, while the dog, a brindled cross of sheepdog and terrier, trotted up to him and sniffed around his heels. Reaching a hand down to briefly ruffle the dog's fur, the elf shifted the weight of the quiver on his back and walked across towards the young man who was definately gazing at him with an expression of mistrust.  
"Can I help you?" the man finally said, his gaze expressing his puzzlement at this strange apparition that had suddenly appeared in his yard. Legolas, sensing the man's confusion, stepped back a pace to make him feel more at ease, while at the same time noting the man's unfamiliar clothing as yet another change.  
"Can you tell me where I am?" the elf asked finally, while the dog still snuffled at his boots which had brought so many mingled senses and smells that were as odd to the dog as the changes Legolas had already witnessed had been to him.   
The young man's expression didn't change, in fact it became slightly more bewildered.  
"You're on my farm, that's where you are, but if you mean where is _that_, well, then, we're in ."  
The name was utterly unfamiliar to Legolas, but his expression didn't betray his own puzzlement. Nodding to the man, he thanked him, and then asked where the nearest town was, earning himself another strange look of distrust.  
"Where did you come from then?" the young man said, then ploughed on without waiting for an answer. "When you get to the end of my driveway, turn left onto the lane and when you reach the crossroads, you'll see the signposts, that'll direct you."  
"Thank you," Legolas said again. "My mind now feels much clearer."  
He turned and started walking back down the track towards the lane, the dog following him a little way until its master called it back.   
"Nice costume!" the man called after him, as he turned the corner again and set off down the lane in the direction of the sun.   
He found the crossroads easily, and spent a while standing on the verge studying the signposts and deciding which direction to go in. Eventually he chose , and set off briskly once more. While walking, he wondered to himself whether all the other inhabitants of this age of Middle Earth would regard him with the same puzzled mistrust that the farmer had. He doubted it, but the man's comment about his garments, his appearance even being a 'costume', somewhat unsettled him. He hoped he would soon meet others of his kind, although he knew there would be few Elves left who hadn't taken the journey to the West. But surely there would be some, and if not, he was sure he would be able to find someone who would assist him in finding his way about.   
Whilst musing on these thoughts, he kept walking along the lane by the side of the hedge and although absorbed in thinking, he still was alert, and so heard the distant noise of something approaching, quickly seeing it on the horizon a second later. He stopped, and felt uncertain, his hand straying towards his arrows and then checking himself, hesitating, while the strange thing was moving fast. Eventually he just crouched down in the long grass and watched as it came speeding down the lane towards him. His senses hadn't alerted him to any threat, so he waited and then the thing was suddenly tearing past him with a muted sound resembling a strangled roar, sending up a cloud of dust into the elf's face, and then disappearing off along the lane and into the distance.  
Legolas stared after it, then suddenly coughed and realised that he had both held his breath for the seconds that the vehicle had gone past him, and that also his hands were shaking. He wasn't afraid, he told himself, he knew that whatever the strange thing had been, it wasn't going to harm him, but he hadn't expected changes like these, and now all he could think was, what other changes am I going to see? He was prepared for any kind of danger, after all he was an experienced fighter and had proven many times that he was capable of protecting both himself and others with his fierce fighting skills, but still the thought of the unknown sent a slight shiver through him. He would have to wait and see, he mused to himself, see what other changes had occured, and he would have to learn to adjust to them. It would be an adventure, it would be an experience. He rubbed the dust from his eyes and straightened up, feeling detirmined once more. After all, why else had he returned, if not to find out what time had done to Middle Earth, and to live the changes for himself?

  



End file.
